Basil &
Chives is the first high-end, white tablecloth restaurant in a traditional
industrial town near Seattle. The owners are Vietnamese and feature the
elegant, French-inspired side of Vietnamese cooking not widely known to
Americans. The building was a closed Eagles lodge which needed a major
transformation to provide a suitable environment for a high-end restaurant.
Our architectural design includes an efficient, compact commercial kitchen layout, a
separate scullery, a completely new women’s restroom, reservation
of the rear of the building for banquet use, and opening up the front
of the building to the street. Our experience as restaurant architects allowed the project to go smoothly throught the Snohomish County Health Department plan review process.

Major Considerations: The design needed to be as cost-effective as possible.
The design kept the kitchen compact and worked around an existing walk-in
refrigerator. The front of the building was closed-off from the street,
and bars typically are. For a restaurant it was important to open the
front to the street. Our architectural design strategically added large, residential
frame windows while strengthening the remaining wall areas to ensure the
building would remain sound in a major earthquake. The design includes
energy-efficient lighting and high-efficiency glazing in the windows for
energy savings.